James Markham Hall, Co-Founder Gold Creek VR, shares his production tips for creating 360/VR video. How do you light in 360/VR when all of your crew and gear will be in the shot? What happens to your 360 camera and tripod? How do you remove it from your 360 footage? He discusses these challenges, and more, and gives a hands-on demo of Mettle SkyBox Studio in After Effects .

“The challenge really wasn’t taking the light out, but it is was making the light justifiable. The key to lighting in 360 is having your source be justified.” – James

“That’s the power of Skybox Studio. With Skybox Studio, I know that no matter what I shoot, no matter how crazy the situation is, I’m going to be able to take that thing and…get busy on that [Wacom] pen real quick and then everything’s good.” – James Markham Hall

Video Overview:

3:39 – Notice the single added light just left of the centre of the frame, placed near a window. This light illuminates the wall and ceiling, and its placement is justified by the fact that there is a window right behind it.

4:20 – Notice the difference in the room without the additional light. The walls and ceiling are now nearly completely black.

6:21/6:25 – Masks for rig and lighting removal

12:37 – Mask setup for the Great Hall

13:34 – Ghosting due to misaligned stitching

13:30 – Ghosting fixed using Skybox Studio

13:49 – tripod shadow is an issue to be fixed

13:57 – shadow paint out (tripod was left in because it would be covered by a logo graphic later on)

16:41 – Comp window and Skybox Preview window, allowing you to see what the end user will see

18:43/18:55 – 2d video element in the 360 environment

“That’s the power of Skybox Studio. With Skybox Studio, I know that no matter what I shoot, no matter how crazy the situation is, I’m going to be able to take that thing and…get busy on that [Wacom] pen real quick and then everything’s good.”

James formed Gold Creek VR with producing partner Ted Faye with whom he most recently collaborated on Showtime’s top rated sports documentary “IVERSON,” revealing the life of NBA ALL-STAR ALLEN IVERSON. Their first VR collaboration is a historical documentary VR series “American Ghost Towns,” which has a featured channel in the SAMSUNG VR app. Their episode “American Ghost Towns: Goldfield” was awarded “BEST LIVE ACTION VR EDUCATIONAL FILM at VR FEST 2016. Gold Creek VR is partnered with GOOGLE EXPEDITIONS, adapting their award winning episode on Goldfield, Nevada into a Google Expeditions educational VR field trip which was one of eight VR experiences that Google Expeditions featured at the 2017 BETT educational technology show in London. Gold Creek VR has completed a pilot for their new VR series “HISTORIC TREASURES OF THE NATIONAL PARKS,” partnering with the National Park Service to focus on “SCOTTY’S CASTLE,” a damaged historic landmark at DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK.

Mettle Skybox Suite has joined Adobe.

Mettle Skybox Suite of plugins will be exclusively available as part of your Creative Cloud membership through deep, native integration with Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC. Adobe Creative Cloud will offer an end to end experience for crafting rich and compelling VR/360 experiences.